Sophie's Love
by Iolanthe 8
Summary: Sophie's well ordered world is turned upside down, forcing her to confront everything that ever frightened her, so called overdressed boys not least!
1. Sophie is Overtaken by a Force of Nature

Author's Note: _Howl's Moving Castle,_ the novel and its characters, belongs to Diana Wynne Jones, who writes with such exquisite understatement that the reader's imagination rushes in to supply the rest. I am not doing a retelling here (although it does seem to start out that way); I'm trying to get to know Sophie better and to explore her feelings, as I understand them. (All lines of dialogue in this chapter but one are mine. Elsewhere in the story, if you recognize a line of dialogue or description, then Diana Wynne Jones wrote it.)

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1. In Which Sophie is Overtaken by a Force of Nature.

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In Ingary, where well-brought-up young ladies were expected to make congenial marriages with well-brought-up young men ('well-brought-upness' being a quality not easily defined but at once recognizable, having nothing to with a family's wealth or rank and everything do to with that family's capacity for love and attention), there was a time and place for everything. Young people were therefore provided with festivals and parties and balls where boys and girls could meet and grow comfortable with one another, their chaperones remaining safely nearby but carefully unobtrusive.

It was a good system. Most of the time it even worked. It had certainly prepared Lettie and Martha Hatter to be outgoing, self-assured young women. But Sophie, the eldest of Mr. Hatter's three beautiful daughters, was convinced she had fallen through the cracks.

She never said so, of course. And if she blamed anyone, it was herself. Perhaps her father and Fanny, her stepmother, ought to have tried a bit harder to lure her out of her shell. They might have insisted every now and then that she put down her book and go off to a party with Lettie. But they hadn't. Sophie had always protested she would rather stay home and read, and they had allowed her to do so. "Sophie takes care of herself," she would hear them say. "No need to worry about Sophie. She's good at everything she tries. And she's such a _bright_ girl! Why, she's smarter than the rest of us put together! She'll be fine."

-----

It was May Day in her eighteenth year, and Sophie did not think she was fine. Mr. Hatter had died some months before, taking a large piece of Sophie's heart with him, but the family business had carried on and was remorseless in its demands.

"I'm fine, am I?" Sophie muttered as she locked the shop, realizing that even on this holiday she had worked past lunchtime. Indeed, she could not even remember when she had last left home. She had not seen Lettie, who had gone off to apprentice at Cesari's, in the longest time.

"I'm fine, am I?" Sophie muttered again, when she heard the fireworks and saw just how many thousands of people had managed to squeeze themselves into Market Square. There were young men strutting like peacocks in their finery, and young women likewise, everyone shamelessly flirting yet knowing just how far to go and when to break it off. It was like a game that everyone in the world but Sophie had been taught to play.

The noise, the shouting and squealing, the boozy scent of too many people full of too much ale: it quickly overwhelmed her. And the prospect of fighting her way through that crowd terrified her. Sophie was reduced to clinging to the perimeter of the square, skittering like a mouse from doorway to doorway, desperately hoping she would not attract any of the masculine attention that seethed around her. It was dreadful. She felt shriveled and maimed.

But it was only a short way now to Cesari's…. She'd be there in minutes. She'd worry later about fighting her way back home, after she'd seen Lettie and assured herself that all was well with her middle sister.

Almost there….

Oh, no. Sophie had feared all along this would happen: she'd caught a young man's eye. Her tatty shawl and frumpy grey shop-girl dress had been of no use at all. "You were supposed to keep me invisible, you wretched things!" she scolded them. She shrank into the shelter of the nearest doorway. But it was too late. Here he came.

He was golden-haired and richly dressed. He was much older than Sophie and had an air of worldly wisdom about him. He was also very courteous. He exuded none of the brute masculinity of the soldiers and farm boys; his seemed much the gentler, protective sort, reminding her with a pang of her father. But it was masculinity none the less, with its hidden reserves of power and strength. Not long before he died, Mr. Hatter had had that serious talk with his daughters that all parents sooner or later must have: "Never forget that women are smaller than men, and can be physically overpowered by them." He had spoken with particular urgency, for Wizard Howl's castle had not long since appeared in the hills above town. "If a man has been well brought up, such inclinations will have been harnessed and tamed, and he would never dream of hurting you. But if he has not, then you are in danger."

"How are we to know the difference?" Lettie had asked.

"Especially if we fall in love with someone who isn't the boy next door," Martha added.

"You will have to rely on your common sense, your wisdom, and your instinct," Father answered. "You must also listen to your heart."

Well, Sophie was in that situation now, face to face with a stranger, and her wisdom and common sense had fled. Her instinct, however—oh, her treacherous instinct! The young man was saying, "I only want to buy you a drink. Don't look so scared." Even as she protested that she couldn't, she mustn't, she felt a thrill of attraction over every inch of her skin. It frightened her. She'd once seen the tamed and placid river that flowed through Market Chipping in flood; it had uprooted huge trees and sent them tumbling end over end. And all young ladies, Sophie Hatter included, knew that Nature commanded more than one inexorable force.

Now he was offering to see her safely to the bakery. She knew he meant it kindly (that must have been her heart talking, she decided afterwards). But she stammered her thanks and said no. At that he looked a little sad, but he made no move to keep her there.

And then she ran away. He had pitied her and offered to protect her, and she ran away! She felt her face burning with shame. It was she who was behaving badly, yet he had respected her wishes. What a courtly person! What a gentleman!

-----

Sophie set out for home just before sundown. By then the milling crowds had grown drunken and belligerent, but the fear that had earlier afflicted her was gone. It was as though some benevolent power had raised a favoring wind at her heels, and cast over her a cloak of concealment from any unwanted attention. Still, she was very much relieved to reach her own door. The day had exhausted her. "The world is too big and frightening, and you don't know any of its rules," she told herself as she gave the shop a final—and completely unnecessary—tidying up. "Too late to learn them now."

"And obviously," she went on, remorselessly berating herself, "You are quite incapable of behaving civilly or properly toward anyone, not least a most elegant, well-brought-up young man who means you no harm. You will no doubt live out your life in this shop and die in it, alone."

It was a great relief.

Why, then, was she suddenly angry enough to slash every hat in the place to bits and stamp on it till there was nothing left but straw fragments, tattered shreds of ribbon, and waxy silken puddles that once had been flowers and fruit?


	2. In Which There are Wolves

2. In Which There are Wolves.

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_Lose your temper, lose a customer._ Lose your temper a second time, lose your youth, your children-that-might-have-been, your peaceful middle age, and pretty much the rest of your life. Not to mention your family, your home, and your trade.

Sophie was still too stunned to grieve. Just now she ought to have been safe and warm in her room above the shop, not struggling into the knife-sharp wind that blew down off the moors. She had seldom in her life been out after dark, not even in the quiet lamplit streets of Market Chipping. Out here it would soon be dark beyond imagining. A wolf howled, distant yet not far away enough: it sounded bitter and lonely, unwanted and unloved….

_Don't be silly, _Sophie chided herself. _It's hungry, that's all. And if it catches you it's not going to give a fig that you felt sorry for it! _Knowing that she would make any wolf a poor supper, stringy and tough, was small comfort.

Sophie was exhausted. At least she had a walking-stick, thanks to the wretched half-wild dog she had pulled from the hedge that afternoon. She had always been nervous around dogs, but there was no time for that; if she hadn't done something the creature would have died of choking or starvation. And anyway no dog bite could disfigure her any worse than she already was! Not that it took kindly to being helped; it bared its fangs and rolled the whites of its eyes at her as she struggled to cut the tangled rope that bound it. Once free it circled her warily, slowly backing away, all the while growling deep in its throat. Then with a sudden yelp it turned and sprang off downhill through the heather.

"That ugly, am I?" Sophie cried, shaking her stick at it. But she was more amused than chagrined by its hostility. Clearly the poor thing had been driven mad by someone else's cruelty. _That's two of us, my friend,_ she thought. Too bad it hadn't stayed, though; they might have curled up and frozen to death together.

There was nothing for it but to keep climbing.

-----

And there it came, as she had somehow known it would: Howl's castle. Good heavens, it was hideous, huffing and puffing its chilly, predatory breath, as if the moor-wind wasn't bad enough! It lumbered hugely over the hill, right at Sophie, filling the sky with smoke and terror. Oh, there were so many things she'd like to say to that horrible man: "_You're the biggest and baddest wolf of them all, aren't you, Wizard Howl?_ _Trolling the countryside looking for innocent girls to eat! Well, try me, you great bully! You might find yourself in for a surprise."_

She was angry, but she wasn't really frightened. It was just one more baffling event in this horribly bewildering day. But why did it have to come to this? Why couldn't it have been Someone Else's castle? Wizard Suliman's, perhaps? But no. Wizard Suliman, who was said to be a great and good magician, was dead. Wizard Howl might be the darkest nightmare of every well-brought-up young lady anywhere, but at the moment he was Sophie's only hope of refuge from the dark and cold. Yet it pained her to wonder what would Father think of her, jumping right down the maw of the beast like this.

The spell that had made her look old was going to have to protect her.

"Stop!" she cried at the heaving, grinding, lumbering mass. The castle promptly did so. It must be hungry.

"Open up!" she yelled. It took several tries and much furious pounding before a small shabby back door creaked open.

_Let Wizard Howl never, never find out just how young and frightened I really am!_ she prayed. Then she plunged into the abyss.


	3. Sophie Searches for Bluebeard's Trophies

3. In Which Sophie Searches for Bluebeard's Trophies.

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At some point in the depths of that night of darkness and disorientation, the Witch's curse fully caught up with Sophie. She knew it the moment she had snored herself awake. Her head was lolled back at an unnatural angle, and when she tried to raise it her neck cracked. She was achy and cold to the bone. Her chest felt tight. She wasn't breathing quite right. She didn't merely look old, she _was_ old.

She knew well where she was: in the chilly depths of Howl's castle. She was alone save for the human skull on the workbench behind her chair. She knew that it must be dead, but it did not quite seem dead. Sophie could feel it _looking_ at her in the darkness. This was extremely unsettling.

_What have I done?_ she cried silently. Of course there was no answer. The fire had burned low. She groped for a log and fed it, then fed it another.

Half-asleep now, half-awake, she fancied she saw a face in the fire.

-----

By the light of morning things were no better. The castle was filthy. There was a window that shouldn't have been there, looking out impossibly over the sea. Worst of all, there _had_ been a face in the fire, and with a terrifying evil, crackly voice it had said, "Don't you want your heart eaten?"

Of course she didn't. What a horrible thought! But it didn't change the reality that, in the end, Sophie Hatter had entered into a bargain with a fire demon. No one ever came to good who'd done that, at least not in the stories she'd read. What would Father have thought of her? After he died things had so quickly gone wrong!

And what would happen when Howl came home? What would he say? What would he do? What would he look like? Would he be old and twisted and horrible, all his wickedness showing in his face? Or would he be a too-beautiful, soft-spoken seducer, smiling hideously as he sank his fangs into her soul?

Whenever the rumors began flying that Wizard Howl had "taken" another girl, it wasn't long before somebody would whisper (with a shudder) the name _Bluebeard_. Not so long ago, within living memory, in fact, that murderous old madman had terrorized the entire district surrounding Market Chipping.

Some said he was a pirate who'd fled inland from the Royal Navies of Ingary and Strangia, either of which would have shot him on sight, then hung him and driven a stake through his heart just to make sure he was dead. Others said he was an insane nobleman who'd left Kingsbury for the countryside in search of sweeter, more innocent prey. He built a splendid castle-fortress high in the moors, much like Howl's except that no one ever saw it move. Not long after, he took a girl from the lower Folding Valley to be his bride. He showered her with riches and good things to eat, and give her leave to wander every part of his castle, save one: there was a door, a single door, that by his command she must never, never open.

She opened it, of course. They always did.

-----

It was beginning to sink in that Sophie, having entered Howl's castle of her own volition, would never be anybody's young wife, not even if the curse were lifted, for the moment she became young again she would be eaten. But maybe she could save some other poor girl from that awful fate. Like Bluebeard's bride she would need to find the secret room, let the light shine in on its grisly contents, then use what strength she had to slay the Wizard and render him limb from limb.

She forced herself to look around and under everything and to try all the doors. She soon knew beyond all doubt that she had entered a realm of utter depravity. The castle bathroom was not just filthy, it was cluttered with tubes and jars of nameless substances that said they were eyes or skin or "FOR DECAY." Murder had been done here, that much was plain, even if she had not yet discovered Howl's trove of corpses with their chests laid open and their hearts torn out.

As she searched, Sophie thought with longing and regret of the elegant young man she had met in Market Square. In hindsight, he seemed like a prince. What would have been the harm in letting an agreeable stranger buy her a drink on May Day? If she had, perhaps her life would have gone off in some other, better direction. She might not be in this dreadful situation.

To think of him made her heart ache far worse than her bones ever could.

Sophie seldom cried. In her old life she had been loved, sheltered, and protected. Until Father died, nothing bad had ever really happened to her, unless you counted losing her mother when she was two years old. But although Sophie would always be sad that she had no memory of her real mother, at least she and Lettie had had a good stepmother.

She had now lost her stepmother and her sisters too. Sophie sank into the chair by the hearth, overwhelmed and exhausted all over again. The fire got blurry. Through her tears the odd, inscrutable face of the fire demon watched her. What on earth was it thinking, what on earth did it want?

At some point the wizard's apprentice came downstairs, obviously not pleased that she was still there, and wondering what he ought to do about it. Here was another mystery: if Howl was grooming the young man for a life of wickedness, there was nothing to show it. This Michael had an open, good-natured face, and going by the cut of his shirt and trousers Sophie's clothes sense told her that someone was taking very good care of him indeed. Yet what parent would

apprentice their child to a man like Howl, even if he were the greatest wizard in the world?

Michael's reluctant offer of breakfast made Sophie realize she was ravenous. Those wolves last night had nothing on her! But getting up a hot meal turned into quite a battle of wills—Sophie's against the demon's. It was plain that Michael had long since given up any effort to subdue "Calcifer," who whined and spat as though Sophie were the elemental power and Calcifer her helpless victim. But their bargain was as binding on the demon as it was on her, and in the end he bent down and suffered himself to be cooked on.

It was at that moment that Wizard Howl, who had been out all night doing who-knew-what, returned.

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Notes: On Bluebeard – From HMC, Chapter 1. The villagers, gossiping about Howl, imply that he is another "Bluebeard." I looked up the old story and found it had some interesting relevance to Howl's "carefully blackened reputation." I also decided that since Ingary occupies a dimension in which fairy tales have objective reality, Bluebeard may as well have been a "historical" figure.

On Michael's clothes – In Chapter 3 of HMC, Sophie's first impression of Michael is that "he was most respectably dressed" and could have been "the son of a prosperous farmer."


	4. Sophie Readjusts her Thinking

4. In Which Sophie is Compelled to Readjust her Thinking.

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"_Oh, hello, Howl," Michael said helplessly. Sophie turned round at that, rather hurriedly. She stared._

Sophie's mind went all but blank with shock. The little that remained spun wildly, trying to make sense of this new information: Bluebeard-Howl and the kind young man from Market Square were one and the same.

_Just turn the bacon and keep right on cooking. Don't think about what happens next. And whatever you do, don't think about May Day._

Howl was staring back at her. How much did he see? His initial confusion quickly resolved (no thanks her protestation that she was a complete stranger—what an idiotic thing to say!), and he grew wary and aloof. He practically dived at Calcifer, quite firmly shoving her to one side. "Calcifer doesn't like anybody but me to cook on him," he declared.

No doubt those words were intended to rebuke Sophie, but they seemed aimed at Calcifer too, as though Howl were pointedly reminding the demon of _the rules._ Calcifer must have got the same impression; he flared at Howl and spat sparks.

Howl placated him with eggshells and bacon rinds while he bombarded Sophie with questions. _Why have you come here? My new cleaning lady? Oh, really? Who says you are?_

He had every right to challenge her invasion of his home; Sophie could not reasonably take offense at that. She did anyway. She quite got her back up, in fact. Feeling her oats and her age, she snapped at him, "I can clean the dirt from this place even if I can't clean you from your wickedness, young man!"

Howl seemed to like that; he smiled rather smugly.

"Howl's not wicked," Michael protested.

"Yes, I am," Howl contradicted him. "You forget just how wicked I'm being at the moment, Michael."

Michael said nothing.

Sophie waited for Howl to do something wicked. Nothing occurred. True, he had quite brusquely pushed away the little mouse he had tried so hard to befriend in Market Square. But that wasn't wickedness. It was simple rudeness, nothing more. And it hurt, rather.

Well, she wasn't going to let it go on hurting. She was old Sophie now, ancient in body and ancient in soul. She needed to stop thinking and feeling like a silly, vulnerable girl. Get over May Day. Forget that tingle she'd felt at the first sight of him. He was certainly making it easy enough, behaving the way he was. And thank goodness for that. Howl must never, never know how she had felt about him that day.

And thank goodness, too, that the moment breakfast was over he was no doubt going to show her the door. Seeking your fortune wasn't half so much fun as the stories made it sound. Really, it was a disaster. Which made perfect sense, being the eldest of three and all. It was time to give it up, go home, tell Fanny the truth, try to get help with the curse. Maybe Fanny's old friend Mrs. Fairfax could do something. Because at this point Sophie wouldn't ask for Howl's help on a bet. She strongly suspected he was just a clever showman and no wizard at all—a poser, a charlatan, a fraud.

It _was_ pretty amazing, though, the way he could break eggs with one hand.


	5. In Which Sophie Spins a Web

5. In Which Sophie Spins a Web.

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Howl's spiders wove their webs, and Sophie wove hers: an intricate pattern of assumptions and beliefs, whys and wherefores, concerning her host. If Sophie had been a witch she might have understood that what she was really doing was casting a spell to ward off everything she feared and yearned for about Wizard Howl—especially the latter.

But she was no witch. And central to her web was the core belief that Howl was no wizard.

For one thing, she'd never yet seen him do anything magical—_if _you ignored the question he put to her the moment he walked in the door that first morning: _Where have I seen you before? _Sophie felt a lingering uneasiness about those words: did Howl have magical sight like Calcifer, who had instantly seen through the aging spell? If so, Sophie had no secrets from Howl and hadn't since the beginning. Which meant she was in grave danger.

But nothing had happened. Not yet. So the question must have been innocent. No doubt Howl had a granny or a great-aunt who looked like Sophie—_if _you assumed that evil wizards were real people with mothers and fathers and elderly relatives, and didn't just spring out of the earth fully formed. Sophie wasn't sure about that. She _was_ sure, though, that ordinary people had grannies and all, so that line of thinking favored Howl's being nothing more than an unmagical, all-too-mortal young man. Which was rather confusing.

Calcifer was a different matter. He knew, and he could spill the beans at any time. So far he hadn't done it. Sophie was fairly confident that he wouldn't; they had their bargain, and anyway the fire demon was playing his own game.

Michael, on the other hand, was so guileless and innocent that he didn't even figure into Sophie's assumptions. It did seem a shame that he was apprenticed to Howl under false pretenses, Howl being a fake wizard and all, but Sophie decided that was Michael's problem, and his parents'.

So she went on scrubbing, straightening, digging out, organizing, polishing, and snooping (or "searching," as she preferred to think of it). She banished acres of droopy dust-laden cobwebs, but she let the spiders be. Sophie could think of two good but very different reasons for this.

The most important was that Howl didn't want them killed. In a sort of tribute to that innocent and hopeful May Day, Sophie respected his wishes, just as he had respected hers by letting her go. She had grieved badly for her pleasant memory of that gallant young man in Market Square. Thoughts of him had sustained her as she fled her home; they might have gone on doing so indefinitely, if only he hadn't turned out to be Horrible Howl—

Sophie had to wrench her thoughts away every time they started down that path. Best to concentrate on her chores. Don't think, _clean._ The floor, the rafters….

The other reason for sparing those spiders was that they _might _be Howl's trophies, the jewels in his hoard, the souls of all the girls he had bespelled—_if _Howl had been a real wizard, of course.

Either way, Sophie would have sworn the creatures were happier since she came. They twinkled merrily up there, as though they were glad to be free of all that choking dust, and the new webs they spun were delicate and fine.

---

Sophie had spent her life around girls. Her sisters' and stepmother's frilly bedrooms always smelled of pink soap and perfume. Dolls, trinkets, hair-ribbons, silver brushes, jewelry, petticoats, and cast-off frocks were everywhere. But beneath all the feminine clutter things were fundamentally _clean. _Even Father's study, his tweedy haven of books and pipes and leather chairs, was clean, although Fanny hinted that before she moved in he had let things go in his grief for his dead wife.

"Every home needs a woman's touch," she often said.

It must be true, if all males were like this lot Sophie shared space with now. How Michael and Howl could emerge so nattily dressed from such filth and squalor was beyond her. Howl beat by miles Lettie's record of time spent primping while holding up the bathroom. But unlike Lettie, the more perfect Howl's appearance when he emerged, the worse the mess he left behind. And Michael was no better. They seemed to regard the bathtub as a sort of natural feature, like a pond. When it was full of water you never noticed the mud and slime beneath. When the water ran out, you simply waited for it to fill up again. Nature took care of it, and you never saw Nature going at an empty pond with a scrub brush and bucket, did you? Such, evidently, was the male theory of housekeeping.

It took days to deal with the unholy spatters, glops, and drips of Howl's cosmetic spells. Beneath them was a grimy, gelatinous layer of soap scum that seemed to spread as Sophie scrubbed it; she spent a solid week on that. Chiseling through the bedrock of grey mineral deposits took another week and a half.

Then came Michael's room. His look of panic made Sophie chuckle. As he rushed past her, clutching the battered old box that held his treasures, she caught a fleeting scent of a perfume that was both sweet and familiar, turning her amusement into a homesickness so sharp it made her heart hurt. She had to clean doubly hard, fast, and thoroughly just to make herself forget how much she missed her sisters, and Fanny, and Father.

She did like Michael, though. Because of him she realized how much she'd missed in never having a brother.

His room, though: gah! It was shabby and dusty. The floor was littered with bits of spells, food wrappers, and apple cores. Numberless cups of who-knew-what had left sticky rings on every surface. The bed was a shambles, the coverlet in shreds. The sheets were grey and unpleasantly "snouty," Fanny's word for the distinctive odour of children who'd gone too many days without washing. (It went without saying that when Lettie and Martha were little, Sophie never, _ever _allowed them to reach that state.) The mattress was lumpy and thin. Weevils had been about their business, chewing through the ticking and nibbling the straw inside to powder. They'd had their way with Michael's pillow, too, which exploded in a sneezy cloud of feathers and eiderdown.

Sophie took the sheets downstairs and nagged Calcifer until he heated her some water in the sink near the workbench. When she had washed and bleached the daylights out of them she trudged back upstairs and flung them over the windowsill to air. The sharp, clean Porthaven sunshine ought to put paid to all snoutiness.

That afternoon she mended and re-stuffed Michael's mattress and pillow. The next day she set to whitewashing everything upstairs that wasn't Howl's bedroom. By the end of each day she was so tired and stiff she could barely move.

But that made no difference. Attacking Howl's lair with broom, mop, and bucket filled her with a wild, mad joy. She wasn't sure why, although she could think of several _possible _reasons, most of which were too disturbing to contemplate. Better to keep spinning that web, ever thicker and stronger.

---

And then came the morning Sophie had both dreaded and anticipated with glee. Every inch of the castle gleamed, except for the one room she had not yet dared to attempt: Howl's bedroom. _Now, at last, we're going to get some answers, you slippery man,_ she thought as he gathered his guitar and went flouncing to the door.

Once it closed behind him, she seized her bucket and broom (which she had carefully set out the night before) and hobbled up the stairs on eagles' wings.

And there he was, arrogantly lounging in his bedroom doorway, blocking her way.

She'd never seen anything like it. From there to here in the blink of an eye. If she hadn't been so astonished she'd have smacked him.

"I _am_ a wizard, you know," he pointed out. "Didn't you think I could do magic?"

That got Sophie all schoolmarmish and defensive. "Everyone knows you're a wizard, young man," she said severely, but truth to tell she was frightened out of her wits. She quite expected to get hit with a fireball or a tangle of snakes, or at the very least thrown out of the castle then and there. Howl _did _have a few choices words for her ("dreadfully nosy, horribly bossy, appallingly clean"), but that seemed to be the worst of it.

Sophie went slinking downstairs. She knew she ought to give it up for the day. She also knew that if she stopped cleaning she'd start thinking. It had quit raining in Porthaven, giving her an excuse to march right out to the yard. What a tangled mess! She had just about managed to lift one edge of a long curved panel of rusted blue metal when, pop! there he was, right in front of her.

The grand theatricality of his entrance was spoiled when he slid on the greasy wet metal and caught his foot. Sophie knew she really ought not to push it, but she did anyway. In an instant she and Howl were having a glorious row, shouting at each other like Martha and Lettie. Only this time big sister Sophie didn't put a stop to it, because big sister Sophie was right in the thick of it herself. And didn't she enjoy it, too! At first, anyway.

For someone who said he _hated_ quarreling and could not _bear _to get angry, he was deadly in his aim, honing right in on Sophie's doubts and anxieties: _Then you must think of a new meaning for your life! _That was the trouble: her life had lost the meaning it had, and she was trying hard to find a new one.

Howl was no help. Shooing her into the house, he tore one immaculate blue-and-silver sleeve on a jagged metal edge.

That made him swear like a soldier, and Sophie really couldn't blame him. The workmanship in that suit of his was exquisite. She offered to mend it, knowing she could darn the intricate cut-out edges and delicately embroidered insets so skillfully the damage would never show.

"There you go again," he said. "How you must love servitude!" Sophie didn't love servitude, she hated it, but this was not about that. It was about skill, and pride in your work—

He drew the sleeve through his fingers, by magic mending in an instant what would have taken hours by hand. "There," he said. "Understand?"

Sophie understood. Clearly, Howl had more talent—and power—than she could begin to comprehend. Which was quite ominous. And intimidating. And fascinating.

"What _is_ all that rubbish?" she demanded, glancing over her shoulder at the yard as he pushed her inside and shut the door behind them.

She thought he'd roll his eyes at her, or swear again, or slither upstairs without answering, or storm into the bathroom for the next three hours. Instead he raised one eyebrow, and with a self-satisfied _all-right-since-you-insist-upon-it _look, said, "Besides bits of stuff from the Porthaven shipyards, you mean? Well, there's the right front and left rear wings off a Ford Cortina. That bonnet's off a TR-7. The rear bumper over there was on an old Vauxhall. I've got a couple of gearboxes and a spool of electric wire my dad used to keep in his garage. And don't bother asking how I got them here," he added airily, "because _that,_ Mrs. Spanner-in-the-works, is a trade secret."

Sophie gave him a sour, uncomprehending look, then stumped angrily to her chair by the fire and sat in it. Howl was frustrating, infuriating, mystifying, and full of surprises, all of them unpleasant. Her web of assumptions was going to need some repairs.

---------------------

Notes—Regarding weevils: In HMC, Chapter 5, DWJ writes of "Michael's worm-eaten little bed." This could be what she meant.

Regarding the Porthaven yard: After I had read the book a time or two and noticed various little intrusions from our world (Howl's "strange, everlasting quill pen" in Chapter 6, for instance), I began wondering if Howl's pile of junk might include some old car parts to serve as "frameworks" for his transport spells.


	6. In Which Sophie Talks to Cosmetics

6. In Which Sophie Talks to Cosmetics (and a Suit).

-----

It was now getting on into June, and the weather was seasonable and mostly fine. That seemed to go for whichever part of Ingary was knob-down. Beyond the red door, in Kingsbury, already you could fry eggs on the cobblestones. On the uplands where the moving castle roamed it was sunny, with a cool breeze and big cloud shadows racing over the heather.

But Porthaven was fogbound and melancholy, made all the more depressing by the ceaseless tolling of what Michael called the bell-buoys. "They're supposed to warn the sailors that they're in too near the rocks," he said sadly. "_Supposed_ to."

(There was of course no knowing what the weather was like on the other side of the black door.)

Sophie wasn't confined in Porthaven like Calcifer, yet the seaside mist and damp affected her just as badly. She took to waking up hours before Howl and Michael so they wouldn't see her hobbling about bent over double. Usually she'd have herself unbent by the time breakfast was over. More often than not, though, she was exhausted before the morning had hardly begun.

But that didn't stop her. After Michael and Howl went out for the day, Sophie cleaned and straightened and searched. All right, _snooped._ Still no pieces of girl. That was good, wasn't it? Why, then, did she feel so strange, both at peace and on edge?

---

"I wish I could tell him who I am," she said aloud one morning to Howl's shelf of hair and cosmetic spells, which as usual were in disarray. "Just get it all out in the open. If he only knew it was me, the girl he met on May Day, the mouse with the red-gold hair..."

_I won't run away this time, I promise. I'll stay and talk. I'll even let you buy me a drink._

_And then I'll let you take me in when I have nowhere else to go..._

Oh, bother you, Sophie! Don't be absurd. And don't be getting moony over that vain, shallow, ridiculous peacock of a man. Like he'd ever show a moment's interest in you, now that he's seen you the way you really are!

---

Then Howl took to staying in. He was upset about something; that much was plain from the way he ran in and out and up and down, fretting and fidgeting, getting things out and not putting them away. Sophie understood this kind of behavior quite well. All the same, after two days of it she was about to lose her mind.

It _was _his house, of course, but still—

She remembered Fanny saying, back in that happy time before Father grew ill, that a man in the house, day in and day out, was a real trial. She was fond of quoting the universal lament of old wives whose husbands had retired from their fields and shops: _"I married him for better or for worse. I didn't marry him for lunch." _

Of course, after Father died Fanny said she would have given anything to have him constantly underfoot. She had hinted something else about men that was good to understand if you wanted to live with them and keep your sanity, but Sophie couldn't remember what it was. It kept slipping away.

She wished they could have a good long talk over tea, now that Sophie found herself in this odd domestic arrangement. Fanny would know what to do.

But maybe it was because the arrangement _was_ so odd (not to mention irregular) that Sophie could not bring herself to write to Fanny. Instead she darned Michael's socks, sewed on his buttons, and let out his seams. And she tried to stay out of Howl's way.

---

When _finally_ he left the castle for a walk in the hills, several things happened, all of which later caused Sophie trouble and embarrassment.

She had set out to prove, to herself or whomever, that Howl was—that she was—oh, _hell_, she didn't even know any more. "This place has turned me into a snoop, a fool, and a blithering idiot," she told the bathtub as she cleaned it.

But whatever it was, she was dead set on proving it. And just let anybody try and stop her! The moment the coast was clear she stomped right over to the castle door, turned the knob to black blob down, and flung it open. She half expected mangled hearts to come tumbling out, like hats and mittens from an overstuffed hall closet. Instead she found—nothing. Strange, blank, beyond-the-moon nothing that was a mystery even to Calcifer.

Upstairs, then. "He's locked it," Calcifer said. "He told me to tell you if you tried to snoop again."

Blast! Sophie felt as though she'd been caught with her hand in the dish of sweets.

So she sat down to mend Howl's grey-and-scarlet suit. Thwarted, frustrated, and irritated, she gave it a good talking-to.

She talked entirely too much to it, in fact.

Then Michael got home, and it all came out: the truth about the silly rumours, the ridiculous name-blackening, and what Howl was really up to. "He's only interested until the girl falls in love with him," Calcifer explained. "Then he can't be bothered with her."

Sophie didn't like to think that she and her sisters and even her parents, who in her opinion were far more sensible than most people, had fallen for Howl's silly adolescent need to create an aura of scandal about himself. It made her rather angry. In fact, it made her want to bash him a good one. "Just wait till you get home," she told the suit, angrily jamming her needle through it.

---

But when Howl got home he looked more in need of a kind word and a cup of hot chocolate than a bashing. Sophie had never seen him like this before—sad-looking and vulnerable, with an almost childlike hurt in his eyes.

"Something to eat?" she offered.

He wasn't listening. Five minutes later he had locked himself in the bathroom.

"I think he's tinting his hair," Calcifer explained.

_Oh, for heaven's sake, _Sophie thought. _Like that's going to solve his problems._

---

Nothing in any book, nothing in Fanny's homespun common sense or Father's wise counsel, could have prepared Sophie for what happened next.

Howl came undone. He went to pieces. _Many_ pieces.

"Look at this," he shouted, crashing his way out of the bathroom. Apparently His Royal Brattiness's hair had come out the wrong color. _"Look _at it! What has that one-woman force of chaos _done_ to these spells?"

Sophie tried a bit of levity. "If you mean me—" she began, as if there might be some other one-woman force of chaos in the castle at that moment.

When that didn't work, she tried flattery. "I think it's very nice," she said, and she meant it.

For some reason, this drove Howl into a mad rage. "You did it on purpose! You couldn't rest until you made me miserable too. I shall have to _hide_ until it's grown out!"

There was no bringing him down. "Despair! Anguish! Horror!" he cried. Anyone else who yelled such stuff would merely have sounded melodramatic and absurd. But Howl was a magician of such power that even as he spoke them his words called up hideous black spectres, billowing out of every corner of the castle, wailing and moaning and howling as they came.

Michael seized Sophie's hand and got her out of there. But there was no escaping. Howl's shrieks and sobs followed them, louder and louder, driving the villagers from their homes in terror. Everybody fled down the high street as far as they could, all the way to the sands—

All the way to the edge of the sea. Sophie had never seen it before, and it was worth seeing all right. It was as vast, grey, and roiling as the sky above it, with glowing gold patches where the sun broke through the clouds. Only along the shoreline was there a mean, low, socked-in black cloud making a chilly, unceasing drizzle. Howl's equally unceasing anguish made things all the more miserable.

The townspeople seemed more concerned for the poor sorcerer's well-being than frightened. Sophie felt angry and embarrassed. Really, he was no better than brawling drunken neighbours, making everyone else bear witness to their unhappiness. But this was much, much worse. And to think of so much power in the hands of someone so childish!

When it finally ended it was like the sun coming out. It was still drizzling, but the storm of rage and grief had ended in a haunted, exhausted silence. Really, no harm had been done, other than to Sophie's tattered dignity—and several hundred eardrums.

It was good to reassure everyone—and herself—that the coast was clear. All was well. "It's all over now," she told them.

But, of course, it wasn't. In fact, it had only begun.


	7. In Which Michael Tells a Story

7. In Which Michael Tells a Story.

-----

Every sparkling, well-scrubbed inch of castle floor was now covered in slime of a transparent green so nauseatingly vivid it glowed. As Sophie and Michael watched in horror, the slime swallowed a pair of muddy boots and a basket of onions, then began oozing hungrily toward Sophie's broom. Howl was completely covered in it. From the way it was seeping through his fine blue suit and his newly reddish-gold hair, Sophie could tell that it was coming from him.

What a petulant, selfish child he was! Sophie was about to go striding across the room to give him what for when, with a cry of dismay, Michael caught her by the arm. "Don't touch it, Sophie! It might be acidic. Even worse, it might be a really corrosive base."

"There's no time for magical double-talk just now!" Sophie growled. "What we really need is hot water and the biggest scrub-brush you can find."

"Please, Sophie. It could hurt you. It could even kill you. I think—" Michael's face crumpled. "I think it's already killed Howl."

And from that moment on, Michael was of no use. All he could do was stand helplessly in the doorway, jittering.

"Well, we can't have a dead body cluttering up the place, now can we?" Sophie said grimly. "We'll just have to get him out of here before he—" She had a sudden dreadful image of Howl (accidentally or, what was more likely, deliberately) covering himself with FOR DECAY and then—decaying. He certainly wasn't moving. The only thing moving was the slime.

There was nothing for it but to go ploughing through the stuff. It smelled horrible, like a thousand—no, make that ten thousand—years of sniveling self-pity. But Sophie had a hunch it wasn't going to harm her to touch it. Rather like the nothingness behind the black doorway. She put a cautious finger into the nearest puddle. The slime was clammy and crawly and sticky, but it didn't burn.

Ignoring Michael's wails, she hiked up her skirts and strode to the stool by the hearth upon which Howl was slumped.

That was when she heard Calcifer weakly pleading for help. Runnels of slime, creeping over the hearth, had nearly put him out. She got really scared then. And angry. "Stop it!" she barked at Howl. "Stop it at once! You are behaving just like a _baby!"_

---

Several hours later, while Michael was in the bathroom dealing with Howl, Sophie was able to put her broom away at last. The last atom of slime had been expunged from the castle, and she was tired and cross. "So this is Howl's revenge on me," she muttered, idly wandering about the room looking for something more to tidy up.

"It isn't," Calcifer said.

"What are you talking about? Of course it is!"

"Sophie, let me tell you something. If Howl were to get really, _really _vengeful, well, you would no longer be here. _I _would no longer be here. In fact, everything within a hundred miles of this house would no longer be here."

"I don't—what on earth are you talking about?"

"He's a wizard, you know," Calcifer said. "A good one. And powerful. You have no idea."

"Oh, bother his eyes!" Sophie grumped, stomping over to her chair by the hearth and sitting down heavily.

The _I-told-you-so _look on Calcifer's face made him even more demonic than usual. "Don't you remember what I said, not ten minutes before the entire business boiled over?"

"No, Calcifer, I don't, and you'll just have to excuse me if I don't spend _every_ minute of _every_ day hanging on _your_ every word."

"Sophie dear, if you want us to get out of this thing before it's too late, you're going to have to start paying attention."

"Why? Was it a hint?"

Calcifer's hiss sounded exasperated, but with him you never could be sure. "Maybe, maybe not."

"Tell me! And then leave me alone."

"All right, it _was_ a hint," Calcifer said, "though _not_ about the contract. A hint, all the same. Something that might have saved you a great deal of trouble and embarrassment, if only you had been listening."

Sophie didn't like to think that it was her behavior and not Howl's that had started what ended in mounds of green slime. "Well, then, out with it!"

"These were my words," Calcifer said. _"'For a plain man with mud-coloured hair, he's terribly vain about his looks.'"_

"Yes, you said that. You were being silly. Howl isn't plain."

"Oh, I quite agree."

"In fact—" Sophie's thoughts went back to May Day and the golden-haired prince of a fellow who had spoken so kindly to her. "He was beautiful," she added softly, even as the fond memory faded and the present reality returned.

"_Beautiful?"_ Calcifer roared up like a bonfire. "That's a very interesting remark, Sophie."

"Oh, get out! And lower your voice! I didn't mean anything by it."

"Didn't you, now?" Calcifer said, with a grin full of very long knives.

"I didn't! Howl's appalling. He's a brat. A spoiled rotten, silly, selfish, hysterical brat."

"Really got under your skin, hasn't he?"

"No! It's just that he's thoroughly obnoxious! Making the entire village put up with his griping and moaning, just to humiliate me—it's horrible. _And_ irresponsible. _And _embarrassing. _And—_"

"And here he comes," Calcifer hissed.

---

"_Lovely, lovely Lettie Hatter."_

Howl had had his warm milk, and Michael had gone upstairs to help him into bed. Sophie still sat by the hearth. She knew she would have to go into town tomorrow to warn Martha. She wasn't angry any more. She did feel sad, and dreadfully disappointed, and bereft of hope, and she didn't know why.

From the way Calcifer was looking at her, she could tell that he understood. "Sophie, I'm really, really sorry," he said. "And anything I say is only going to make it worse."

Michael came downstairs then. He took one look at Sophie and immediately drew up the three-legged stool. He sat down in front of her and took both her hands in his. Such a grown-up gesture! Michael was maturing right before her eyes. "So here we are," he said.

"Yes, here we are," Sophie said, turning away to hide her tears.

"Sophie, may I tell you something? I don't know if it will make you feel any better, but it seems like it fits, somehow. Do you mind?"

"Of course not, Michael."

"It's an old story they tell in Porthaven, about a fisherman. Well, they tell lots of stories in Porthaven about fishermen," he added with a chuckle.

"Anyway, one day this one felt something really big pulling on his line. As he struggled to reel it in he was thinking that this was the luckiest catch of his entire life, that he'd eat to the end of his days on it. But then it broke the surface, and the fisherman saw what he had caught: it was not a fish at all but something horrible, something monstrous."

Calcifer leaned forward, listening intently.

"He tried to throw it back," Michael went on. "But he couldn't get rid of it. The harder he fought, the more impossibly tangled it got in his lines."

Sophie said, "What on earth was it?"

"A dead lady. There was nothing left of her but bones. Her teeth were encrusted with shells, and there were great pearls in her eye-sockets."

"How very gruesome," Calcifer said.

"The fisherman let go of his pole, but it was no good. She leaped out of the water—line, hook, and all—and flung herself into his boat. He jumped overboard and started swimming for shore. She flew right after him, bones clanking and rattling over the water. When he got to shore he started running. He ran inland for miles and miles. She ran right along behind him. When he finally reached his hut, he threw himself inside and slammed the door. She was already inside, waiting for him."

"Did she kill him?" Sophie asked.

"No. She lay on the floor in a horrible tangle, very very still. The fisherman felt sorry for her then. So he set about untangling her, singing a soft little song while he worked loose the knots. There were thousands of them. When finally he got them all undone, he put her arm bones and leg bones and rib bones back in the right places. He put a blanket over her so she wouldn't get cold, and then he crawled into bed."

Michael fell silent.

"Is that all?" Sophie said. "Is that the end?"

"Not quite," Michael said. "While the fisherman slept he dreamed a sad dream, and a long tear like a river ran out of his eye. The skeleton lady drank the tear and it made her stronger, strong enough to climb into his bed. Then she reached inside him and took his heart. She held it in her hands and sang to it, and before long she was no longer a skeleton but a beautiful young woman of flesh and blood.

"Then she put back the fisherman's heart, curled up beside him, and went to sleep."

Sophie felt she had just heard something rather important, but like the fisherman she was having trouble untangling it. "What does it mean?" she said.

"That love costs," Calcifer suggested. "It will change you."

"Yes," Michael said. "My dad said it was a lesson. You hook something, whether by chance or on purpose, and before long you're tangled up in it. You're forced to reel it in and take a long, hard look at it, both the good and the bad. You don't get to throw it back. Like it or hate it, you've got to deal with it."

"Right," Calcifer agreed. "So don't give up, whatever happens. Don't give up on him, Sophie."

---------------------

Note: On Michael's story -- I discovered the story "Skeleton Woman" in _Women Who Run With the Wolves,_ a book by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. In it she discusses a number of fairy tales, both familiar and unfamiliar, in terms of love and personal growth. It was very interesting to read these stories, and Estes's interpretations, alongside HMC.


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